When the US Government Built Ultra-Safe Cars

Jalopnik has a piece on a mostly forgotten piece of automotive history: the US government built a fleet of ultra-safe cars in the 1970s. The "RSV" cars were designed to keep four passengers safe in a front or side collision at 50 mph (80 kph) — without seat belts — and they got 32 miles to the gallon. They had front and side airbags, anti-lock brakes, and gull-wing doors. Lorne Greene was hired to flack for the program. All this was quickly dismantled in the Reagan years, and in 1990 the mothballed cars were all destroyed, though two prototypes survived in private hands. "Then-NHTSA chief Jerry Curry [in 1990] contended the vehicles were obsolete, and that anyone who could have learned something from them had done so by then. Claybrook, the NHTSA chief who'd overseen the RSV cars through 1980, told Congress the destruction compared to the Nazis burning books. ... 'I thought they were intentionally destroying the evidence that you could do much better,' said [the manager of one of the vehicles' manufacturers]."

Comments

it's the love child

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

of an AMC Pacer and a Delorean

Not the first time either

[Drakkenmensch]

Just look at the near fanatical destruction of the blueprints and prototypes of the canadian supersonic Avro Arrow combat jet back in the 50's. This car design getting buried is clearly another case of someone not wanting anyone to manufacture a competing model that could shake the current makers out of their lowest common denominator complacency.

Re:Not the first time either

[Aquitaine]

How does that make sense? The conspiracy required for the type of scheme you're describing would mean that the Japanese, American, Korean, and European automakers would all have to be colluding to keep this stuff out of their vehicles. It's also why imports have been routing American cars for so many years -- they've had a lot more of this kind of stuff than American cars. Though one possible reason for that is that they have more money to throw around, since it costs a lot more to design and build a car in the US, thanks to the UAW.

This may finally be changing thanks to Ford, whose new Focus and Mustang are both noteworthy accomplishments in terms of features, performance, and safety, but I don't buy the argument that 'the government should've been in the car business all along and a Reagan/Republican/Auto company conspiracy is the only reason they weren't.'

There have been (and still are) a lot of government-run car companies over the years. You won't see many of the cars they produce today because they're typically totalitarian and/or socialist regimes that make them, and they're usually rubbish. The auto industry in the US (and in most of the industrialized world) is very heavily regulated, with a couple thousand dollars added to the cost of most cars to pay for all the stuff we're requiring the auto companies to do over the next few years. That's not a bad trade-off for a lot of people.

I bought my first real car in 2002, sold it in 2004 to move to NYC, and just bought a new car a couple months ago after leaving the city. It's amazing how much has changed just in that time. Up until very recently, I would never have thought of buying an American car (I never have) but hopefully that will change, though I suspect it'll be Ford and not GM driving that change.

Re:Not the first time either

[fiannaFailMan]

Nobody in the 1970s was all that interested in a "safe" car except maybe a very small minority. And while these cars might have been safe, nobody is talking about what they cost or what sort of performance they had.

The "right" thing probably would have been for the US Government to nationalize the Big Three automakers and mandate that nobody could buy anything except an official US Government produced car. They could have then made the cars safe and high mileage. Nobody would have anything to compare them to and if they cost $50,000 each that would have just further reduced the dependence on automobiles. The could have used the highways right-of-way for rail lines and torn up most of the concrete.

All we really need is a truely benvolent dictator to tell us what the right way is and shove it down everyone's throats. We might actually be on the road to that, especially if the carbon tax goes through. We won't have to worry about consumer choice anymore - all of those complex decisions will be made for us.

Be careful what you wish for, in a Progressive/Liberal government world you just might get it.

Oh gimme a fucking break. A couple of safety or mileage regulations do not equate to a government takeover of all of society and dictatorship installed in place of elected government. You people have been listening to too much Glenn Beck. Knock it off!

Re:Not the first time either

[Tekfactory]

If you look into the history of the Arrow, you'll find that the soviets had infiltrated Avro pretty heavily and the secrets they stole including specific Titanium parts appeared in the MiG-25.

So if you want to talk conspiracy theory at least get the right one.

If you want to talk about shaking folks out of complacency and need a plane analogy try Burt Rutan's Starship, first plane to be built with Carbon Fiber, All Glass cockpit, typical Rutan Wings, Winglets, Pusher Props and Canards... FAA wouldn't certify the plane for years, and now everybody uses some or all of these technologies.

For Car analogies try all the Big 3 and other car companies that told Elon Musk of Tesla motors he couldn't build a full electric vehicle, because they couldn't do it. Toyota (Prius and Electric RAV4) just gave Tesla $50 million to help Toyota with their new electric vehicles.

Re:Not the first time either

[ffreeloader]

Do some research at what the Big Three did to Tucker in the late 40's. He had a car that would do 120 mph, a rear-mounted H-6 engine--like what Subaru uses--that weighed only 300 lbs and had 116 bhp and 372 ft-lbs of torque, 0-60 times around 10 secs, got 20 mpg, had disk brakes, 4-wheel independent suspension, and great aerodynamics--drag coefficient of .27, along with many major safety innovations.

Tucker was decades ahead of his of time in car design and features. He envisioned 15 minute engine swaps if you had engine problems.

My old man lived in Michigan during that time and had brothers living and working in the Detroit car business. They all swore the Big 3 ran Tucker out of business, and were still talking about what happened to Tucker in the 60's. That's how I learned about Tucker automobiles as 10 year old kid.

Re:Not the first time either

[St.Creed]

The VW was mandated by Hitler. And, not to cast aspirations on the left wing of any current political party, but Hitler was a leftist.

He was the head of the National SOCIALIST German Workers Party, which was very left-wing, anti-corporate, by the standards of the day. Of course, that didn't stop Hitler and his band of criminals from charming corporations when it suited their interests. But please, use proper english. "Conservative" and "benevolent" are two words that should never be applied to Adolph Hitler.

Are talking about the guy that smashed the workers organisations, physically eliminated the entire left wing in Germany and wherever he could find them, killed everyone that was even remotely considered to be aligned with the left (writers, artists, intellectuals etc. and in general killed just about everyone who disagreed with him) all the while providing slave labor to corporations who had funded him liberally? Because if you are, i have to wonder if your use of the term "left-wing" actually has any meaning in common with what the rest of the world uses that word for.

And while there certainly is a discussion possible about the leftist sympathies of the rank and file within the SA, the night of the long knives made very sure that those ideas could never become a factor in the party. That fact alone should provide a clue what Hitlers priorities were.

32MPG - old rating or new?

[Andy Dodd]

People consistently rant that newer cars don't seem to be getting significantly better mileage ratings than older vehicles.

Problem is you can't make an apples-to-apples comparison because in the late 1990s or early 2000s, the EPA changed the standards for the mileage test to be more realistic (more stringent).

For example, in the old EPA tests, you could run your test without the air conditioner running even if the car had it. New EPA tests require that the AC is run for a certain portion of the test unless the car doesn't have any AC unit.

Also, in general, engine power outputs have gone up significantly since the 1980s and mid-1990s while keeping the same gas mileage.

So a vehicle that scored 32MPG in the 1970s might only be able to score 20-25 MPG on the new EPA tests.

Re:1970s and 32MPG...?

[Skarecrow77]

I think you might be surprised if you look into what the economy commuter cars from the 70s and 80s actually got.

They were lighter, and had smaller/less powerful engines.

"30mpg!" has been about the average for good mileage for a long time now. Every time we hit a new development in engine technology that'll give us a more effecient engine, we either use it to make more horsepower with the same given displacement, or the government mandates some other safety/emissions technology that pulls us right back down again.

I'm not saying that we (well, the auto industry) can't do better. Of course they can. Europe has turbodeisel deathboxes that get 70+ mpg. I'm saying that we, as americans, don't WANT better gas mileage. We want the huge rwd musclecar with the 7liter V8, or the tricked out awd import pushing 21psi through what might otherwise be an effecient 4banger.

Note, My father did own one of those "8mpg" 70s cars. It was a 71 challenger with a built 440 with a radical cam and solid lifters in it. it had about 500hp BEFORE the 300hp nitrous shot, and it had 4.90 gears in back. If you know anything about cars, you know that the above is about as bad a reciepe you can have for gas mileage short of towing a boat behind it (which he also did. my dad was a crazy guy), and it took all that to get down to 8mpg.

St Reagan Scuttled Success? Shocking.

[coaxial]

When you elect people that axiomatically believe that government can't do anything right, you get people that intentionally do government badly. Whether it's automobile safety, maintaining an a healthy and stable economy, or maintaining worker and environmental safety standards.

You wouldn't hire a janitor that said he was morally opposed to cleanliness and didn't believe that brooms worked. Why would you be shocked when everything goes to hell when you hire someone that says they don't believe government?

Go buy a Passat

[bill_mcgonigle]

Really, if you want all this stuff, you can go buy a Passat, or an Accord with a bit lower mileage. That rig from the 70's wouldn't pass emissions tests today, so it would have to get heavier and the mileage would go down. A 70's Honda engine isn't exactly what people are looking for when they need to get on an Interstate, so you couldn't sell them easily either. Giant bumpers are nice until you need to parallel park in Chinatown.

I totally want a Delorean, emotionally, but I'm not actually going to buy one for daily driving - I was in a roll-over accident once; side-opening doors are nice.

Really, though, somebody should FOIA the plans and build a factory and see what happens, any patents have expired. Prove that Reagan's goons were wrong...

Re:Go buy a Passat

[haruchai]

You're missing the point. By destroying this or not letting it be produced in the US, it allowed for innovation to be almost entirely to go
to the European or Japanese manufacturers
Notice that the options you provided didn't include any from a US manufacturer.
Which "rig from the '70s" would pass any modern emissions test?

And the giant bumpers quip is also a red herring - there were a dozens of wide, long and difficult to park cars back in the '70s.
Did none of their owners eat Chinese restaurant food?

Re:Delorean Similarities

[couchslug]

"Current cars the engine get's shoved into the firewall which then has a chance to crumple the footwell area that your feet are in."

The engines are up-front to absorb impact energy and function as part of the overall structure. This IMO works very well (I do lots of vehicle salvage and get to cut up wrecks using a Sawzall) and I'd rather have a drivetrain up front than a "trunk". Some engine mounts incorporate aluminum members whose controlled failure absorbs energy while guiding the drivetrain where it should go.

Have a look at large salvage yards if you get the chance. The WAY vehicles behave in crashes is interesting.

Re:Delorean Similarities

[Mindcontrolled]

Generally agreeing, but... in current cars, the firewall is designed to hold the engine when it gets pushed back in a frontal crash. It is an essential part of a force path leading into the tunnel structure and, via the firewall cross-beams, into the frame side members, thereby keeping the passenger cell intact. If the intrusion goes further than that, the engine is to be deflected at a downward angle, keeping the footwells mostly intakt. There is no real problem there. In fact, conversions from gas to electric, which are missing the front engine, have the problem that this force path is not there any more. That said, I am gray with envy for that Delorean!

Re:1970s and 32MPG...?

[Jeremy Erwin]

The engine was from a 1977 Honda Accord. The 1976 Honda Accord had a 0-60 time of 13.8 s. source. Not spectacular, but it's less than 8 percent of your suggestion.

Engineers shouldn't exaggerate.

30MPG was not uncommon

[copponex]

There are dozens of cars from the late 70s with that kind of mileage:

http://www.mpgomatic.com/2007/10/08/super-cheap-high-mpg-cars-1978-1981/

Not the least of which being the Toyota Corolla, the most popular car of all time. I used to have a Mazda 323 from 1980 or so that got 45 mpg at 55mph or less, which was great until I ruined it by changing the oil and not tightening the plug sufficiently.

And, given the choice between "unimpressive performance" and "living to see your children grow up," it's amazing people continue to be so shortsighted. Investment in vehicle safety could save far more lives than the war on terror.

Lifetime chance of dying in a car accident: 1 in 83
Lifetime chance of dying of terrorist acts: 1 in 45,000
Lifetime chance of dying of a lightning strike: 1 in 80,000

http://reason.com/archives/2006/08/11/dont-be-terrorized

Re:30MPG was not uncommon

[copponex]

Many of those improvements have been spent on dragging around safety systems, rather than discarded for better fuel economy.

This is true, and both the rate of vehicle deaths and number of deaths per year has been declining for 20 years.

So how do you translate "unimpressive performance" into "less safe"?

Because if everyone drove a small and light car with a smaller, more fuel efficient engine, we would have less fatalities and much less fuel consumption nationwide. We could also save an immense amount of money on replacing infrastructure, since hauling around 4,000 lb SUVs to get a single person from one place to another has more externalities than just the waste of metal and oil resources. Not to mention the increased danger to other, smaller vehicles.

This is why libertarian movements may be the nail in the coffin of the United States. The more a society refuses to pool easily shared resources, the more costs go up for individuals subjected to each other's externalities, and the more efficiency goes down for the society as a whole. If China can turn one gallon of fuel into a few hundred miles of transport per person, and we can only turn one gallon of fuel into twenty miles per person, guess who wins.

For similar outrage...

[Anonymous Coward]

Watch the movie: "Who Killed the Electric Car". The original EV1 made by GM in the 1990's had a brilliant design and several very advanced (for it's time) features. not only did they take them all back, they destroyed every one. i, for one, believe the conspiracy. they just don't want us to know how awesome cars can actually be.

Re:1970s and 32MPG...?

[jbezorg]

Engineers shouldn't exaggerate.

Except when giving time estimates to their captain.

Disheartening

[mollog]

Those who have watched the movie "Who killed the Electric Car" know that industry and politics will conspire to do what's profitable, not what's good policy. It is disheartening to hear that, once again, politicians supported by industry killed an effort to do what's good for the public interest.

Re:Disheartening

[blair1q]

industry and politics will conspire to do what's profitable, not what's good policy.

Then as a member of a democracy it's your job to make sure that such behavior is not profitable, and good policy is.

Re:Disheartening

[nmb3000]

Those who have watched the movie "Who killed the Electric Car" know that industry and politics will conspire to do what's profitable, not what's good policy.

That might be true, but it's also the case that they understate the technical limitations keeping pure electric vehicles off the road. Some of these (batteries, fuel cells, motors) are only just now reaching into the realm of practicality.

A good response to Who Killed the Electric Car is a blog entry from a few years ago, Who Ignored the Facts About the Electric Car.

Both sides make good points, but this is hardly a case of the Evil Oil Conspiracy covering up the 100 MPG carburetor.

Re:Disheartening

[NFN_NLN]

industry and politics will conspire to do what's profitable, not what's good policy.

Then as a member of a democracy it's your job to make sure that such behavior is not profitable, and good policy is.

What country do you live in that has a democracy? Seriously. Most countries have a republic at best. That system involves voting a member into government based on promises. Then having those promises reneged upon without consequence other than not being re-elected again.

You know what I'd like to see: Politicians sign a binding contract based on their platform promises with clearly defined sanctions for not following them. Sanctions up to and including personal liability.

Re:Disheartening

[blair1q]

I was a Republican and I drove an Audi. Then I was a Democrat and I drove a Chrysler-built Jeep. Then I became an Independent and drove a Lexus. Now I drive a Prius.

Showed him.

Re:Disheartening

[Lemmy Caution]

Is an American car a car made in Mexico with the word "Ford" printed on it, or one made in Alabama or Kentucky with the word "Toyota" on it?

Re:Disheartening

[blair1q]

Newt Gingrich made a "Contract with America". 10 bullet points that he kept on a card on a string around his neck (for the two minutes it took to show it to the cameras that one day).

He totally failed to live up to it, too. But what got him thrown out of office was a scam involving "selling" copies of his book in bulk to people who really just wanted to donate more than the legally allowed amount of money to his campaign.

So contracts and politicians are immiscible. Better to saddle them up daily and ride them with the pointy spurs on until they go where you tell them to.

Re:Disheartening

[Big Smirk]

Actually, the "Contract with America" was an agreement to bring 10 things up for a vote. I'm not sure what the pass/reject rate was, but they (the Republicans) did live up to that part.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_with_America

Not a problem for trips

[zogger]

A pure EV using even (relatively) cheap batteries today can suffice for your day to day commuter, recharging at night at home. For long trips trips, there is this concept, the range extending generator trailer.

If you need to do that sort of hundreds a mile a day driving, no, EVs are not for you. Under one hundred miles a day, which hits like 90% of most folk's driving, the tech is here now and a number of places have after market kits to convert cars and light trucks. Run you around 20 grand or so plus the donor vehicle you get used, then you decide what flavor of batteries you want to invest in first. Kits for like a ford ranger or chevy s-10 or some sedan, all sorts have been made so far. And you can put together your own generator trailer for that trip to see the relatives, etc., just stop and fillerup like normal at any gas station.

Waiting for the three hundred mile range on batteries and five minute recharge option, that I see people saying all the time, means they really aren't interested in them unless they are a millionaire or close to it and can get like a tesla or something with their toy budget, and you still won't get a five minute recharge.
But, 50 -100 mile range and falling into the normal joe sixpack range of cost for a new midrange normal vehicle, you can do it now. You can't do it brand new from some dealer, it will be years and years before they get that cheap, but you *can* do it with the kits.

http://www.google.com/search?electric+conversion+kits

More Reagan Crap

[mbone]

I watched the Reagan administration destroy the large Carter administration solar power program at JPL in 1981, so this does not surprise me at all. They literally did not want any competition for petroleum.

I want that guy's name off of National Airport in the worst way.